Lately - My Life in Videos

I have recently discovered that I can take videos with the camera on my phone! Call me technologically retarded but I seriously didn't realize. You press the button that has the camera icon on it twice and it turns to video! So cool! Hence, the following post contains a few videos of what's been going on in my life lately.

AFS has a rule that if an exchange student decides not to do all their exams, said exchange student must do some volunteer work. Others have been helping out in kindergartens, ice cream shops, technology firms, and other interesting things. I have been working in the book depot at my school. You know? The place where you take all your textbooks at the end of the year? Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it's not as riveting as I would have liked. My contact person said she had contacts at this really fancy deli where exchange students had volunteered before and she'd try getme in but we never heard back from her... So there I was... Doing this... For four hours every day for the last week or so.

What's great about it is the people. They are all so chilled and easy to get along with, and it has helped me to see how much progress I have made both in terms of my Danish and how and my people skills. Not being able to communicate so well for so long really sets you up. Now that I can communicate, I cant stop! :) It's also nice to feel useful again. I'm not going to lie I spend a lot of my time in school just playing Subway Surf or Fruit Ninja because school work had a tendency to defeat me or go right over my head. With this un-paid job, I'm DOING something. Otherwise I would be sitting in the sun reading, which is of course lovely but can make you feel both sunburned and lonely if you do it all day every day. Almost all the employees are also students at the school - more friendly faces!

Today was my last day there actually. I made a cake for everyone to say thanks :) I also got a present from Michael, the boss guy. It was a book - appropriate seeing as I was working in a book depot - however it was a VERY interesting book. Turns out that Michael, unbeknownst to all of us who work there, has been writing poetry since 1999. He published it all on the internet under a pseudonym and got a whole lot of great feedback, so he came forward and published HUNDREDS of poems in a book, which he gave me a copy of. Talk about hidden talent...

There was also never ending fruit and coffee in the staff room which I could help myself too. I shall miss that :'(

Because all my Danish friends have been having exams and tests and stress stress stress, I have been spending a lot of time with exchange students. In the last week I have been to the beach, to a picnic, to a concert, and to dinner all with other exchange students. AFS says its important not to spend all your time with other AFSers but its better than being alone, right? Besides, as I said everyone else is busy studying. Here is a video from a concert we went to on Friday night.

Bad video. But it was pretty bad music too not gonna lie. It was this song by a guy called Pharphar and the lyrics translate to "I Feel Like Rolling You." Hideously inappropriate considering the amount of children at the park. It was a free concert though, so.....

Last Saturday, my host aunt came home from a year in England. She is actually younger than me - 17. Thomas' (my host dad's) dad has been married three times and has had five kids and she is the youngest. She was such a sweet girl! It was interesting to meet someone coming HOME from an exchange year as oppose to me - halfway through it. She was really down to earth and open about everything, and her family was SO glad to have her back!

Another exchange student arrangement this Monday too - AFS Copenhagen North ( my local chapter) were invited for dinner at Mook's place. She is from Thailand and is soon to change families so she wanted to host something before the big move. Pretty much EVERYONE is changing families. Some people have had one family until now, are having one for the summer, and ANOTHER one when school starts again. I just cannot imagine it. It would be so stressful having to constantly adapt to new households. I am so comfortable with my family now and, honestly, I am starting to get a weird feeling. I don't want to go home. It's not that I don't miss home, because I do sometimes, but it represents reality. Well, it doesn't represent it, it IS reality. Coming home is an inevitability and it's only just hitting me now. Rather than coming home, why don't ll the people I miss come here? Anyway I'll stop with the melancholic spiel.

We left Mook's house really late and had to wait aaaaages for the train. Nek minnit running down an upwards escalator.

Yep. So, now I have a proposition to make. I don't actually know who reads these posts, but if you do please leave a comment saying what you'd like a video of. I like this whole video thing it saves writing time....

a) A tour around Værløse
b) A day in the life of Molly (the dog)
c) Me talking Danish about something (say what) with subtitles in English

VOTE PEOPLE. If there are people....

:) :)

Social Networking

I am in need of a rant, and this is one I feel like sharing, not writing in my rant diary. And yes, I do have a rant diary. It helps me to sort out my thoughts on whatever I rant about.

Having been here for a little over five months now, I have come to realize that social networking is a GIGANTIC part of youth culture in Denmark. Actually, not just youth, but culture in general. Part of it has to do with the fact that i-phones are slowly taking over the world, and therefore everybody has apps for stuff like twitter, instagram, facebook, and a million other things that give you access to a whole cyber world of endless entertainment with the click of a button. It is a  miracle in terms of human development and evolution, and for this exact reason it is also very controversial. There are two sides to the whole social networking thing, and I'm going to give you my take on both sides.

+ You can contact anyone anywhere, any time.

The exception to this is if your phone dies. Then people think you are ignoring them.

- You cannot avoid people without them knowing (the 'seen' setting on facebook....)
- You are constantly confronted with this whole digital world that makes you feel so in touch with everyone, but really you are sitting on your computer/phone alone looking at profiles that people have carefully constructed to portray themselves in a specific way. The moment it hits you you go from feeling alone to lonely, and that sucks.
- It can become an obsession or addiction.

+ You can connect and keep in touch with old friends and people who live far away.

- Sometimes knowing about what they're up to makes you feel even further away from them (this is a big thing for me at times)

+ You can share your life experiences with people in one big post rather than say the same thing over and over to several different people (eg my blog!)

- You don't actually know who reads it
- Some people consider really weird irrelevant stuff to be a life experience.

Hey guys. Today I made my bed!

...................................................

Cool

+ You can share photos with people in one go (eg. instagram or pinterest) rather than print it out and send it or catalogue it in a photo album
- Some people use instagram to take photos of really irrelevant things.....

# look # at # my # feet

..................................

Cool
- Once your photo is posted online it is no longer yours, anyone can download it, share it, do whatever they want with it.

Social networking and media has reached a point now where you can pretty much know what someone is doing, where they are and who they are with at any given moment. This has its upsides and downsides, but the rule (as for all things in life) is: everything in moderation.

P.S - This was not intended to offend anyone :)

La Belle France

On Monday, I jumped on a plane, flew for two hours and guess where I landed? Swtizerland! I did not stay in Swtizerland, however, I drove thirty minutes over the border by bus to meet my big sister Ali who lives in Sciez, France and works as an au pair. The reason for my visit was her 20th birthday, congratulations Ali! But I also wanted to see how she lived and catch up on the last five months. I've almost been away for five months! Wow!

I arrived on Monday evening and had a huge hug the second I got off the bus. I don't know why but I cried when I saw her too. I wasn't sad, I just cried. Classic me. Anyway, we got pizza to take away and ate it sitting down at one of many ports upon Lake Geneva, admiring the glistening water and sparkling sunshine with a snowy mountainous back drop. After spending so long in a country where the biggest hill I climb is the stairs up to the train station it came as a bit of a shock to be reminded what mountains are again. They are big. They are steep. Nothing like the piddly slopes of Denmark. Being said, I love having no hills. On the other hand, my legs are no longer accustomed to climbing them so walking the cobbled streets of Rhone Alps France region was rather a challenge.

Ali's birthday began with dropping the twin girls off to school. It may have been her birthday but life doesn't just stop, apparently. We then got chocolate almond croissants from the bakery and ate them on the beach. Oh lord, our week of food came from culinary heaven. I feel as if I have put on a million kilos in the last seven days. I know I haven't, but I feel like it. The day after Ali's birthday, we had reservations for a restaurant close to her place which received a Michigan star a couple of years ago. Four course dinner. Yes please. Let's go. That Wednesday night was the culinary highlight of the week. I could honestly go on about food forever, but I'm not going to because other people don't care about food as much as I do. I will summarize: I ate lots of good food. Calories are a stupid human invention and I don't care about them, because it tasted SO GOOD. This sums up my approach to life:






Saw a modern art museum in Geneva. It was free because only one floor was open. It was very hip, very modern :)
- Saw a watch museum in Geneva. Now this was fun, even though it sounds boring it was hilarious. On the third floor, in the back room, there were pocket watches with portraits on them. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. Some of the faces looked like caricatures and some of them were just plain ugly. I literally couldn't stop giggling!
I also met the grandparents of the two girls Ali looks after - they had us over for dinner on her birthday. They were lovely people! I also met an Australian woman who lives close by. Ali babysits her kids in return for a gym membership. She was dog sitting their dog for the weekend because they went away. That dog is not a dog. It is a devil. I have scratch marks on my leg from it jumping up and clawing at me. Who would have though such a tiny little ball of fluff could do so much damage? Sigh...
Also, please excuse the lack of photos. My camera died on the first day there, and I forgot to charge it all week. So smart.

I am back in DK now, obviously, and I am basking in the GLORIOUS SUNSHINE. It rained all week in France so it is a welcome change! I had an English exam on Monday which was a bit of a joke. It was five hours long, and when I finished at 12 and had to find something to do for the next two hours I realised how ridiculously long five hours is for an exam. I had two hours to kill before I could leave. I have the Romeo and Juliet film on my itunes and I contemplated watching it but decided against it- could look suspicious. And yes, we were allowed our laptops and internet access. And food, but I left my lunch at home so all I had was a carrot. Wooooo!

I had such a great week in France. I was awesome to see my sister again, and I was really sad to leave her ;( We both got pretty emotional at the airport. But, the good thing is that she is only 2 hours away! A week away was also particularly significant in that I came home again. Not just back to Denmark but home. It really feels like home. I was so excited to see our dog Molly :) I missed her! And of course I missed my host family too, but scratchy little fluff ball made me appreciate how docile and sweet Molly is. Awwwww. 

Also, please excuse the lack of photos. My camera died on the first day there, and I forgot to charge it all week. So smart.

Exams vs. Party Time!

Because school is ending soon, school has been getting really intense but at the same time everyone is sort of converting into holiday mode even though exams haven't even started yet.
The first set of exams were announced on Wednesday, written Danish (no thanks) and written English. Funny enough, I actually find the practise exams we have done really hard... They are very grammatically based,you have to find a mistake in the sentence, correct it, and explain the rule it correlates to. In spite of my strong linguistic grounding, I am completely dumbfounded when it comes to English grammar. There ARE no rules, because every rule has an exception...

The weather is possibly to blame. On Friday, we had four modules, which is like, a full on day. However, one of those was pe, and in Social Studies we went outside and played a Danish ball game, and then our teacher bought us ice cream. Then in Geography, we sat outside and "did a quiz" which no one really paid attention to, and ate brownies. Everyone gives you cake here. It's not good, but it is so good.

On Friday, we have a school tradition called Lunen, where everyone goes to a field 2 minutes away from the school with a massive boom box and even massiver boxes of beer and cider. Everyone lies in the sun, plays drinking games, etc. I haven't been yet, but I am hoping to go this Friday if the weather is nice :) Just one of those things you gotta do!

Because I have turned 18, I am now legally old enough to go to da clubs. So on Friday, I did!

Excuse the selfie. But it was really fun! No ankle rolling this time. We went to a club called Night Fever. It was hilarious, there were multicoloured light squares on the dance floor and a disco ball and all that classic 70's stuff. Definitely the right place to go if you wanna dance! There were, of course, some very strange people there, however that is always to be expected. There was one young man who joined in everyone's little dance circles and didn't seem so actually know anyone....Some people! I caught he train/biked home and was in bed by 3:30.... Helloooooo sleep in!

The following day, yesterday now was GLORIOUS. It was 25 degrees earlier on. We ate every single meal outside! Caroline and I went to the mall to return something she'd bought but regretted buying, and we were tempted to go shopping, but then decided it was pointless to be inside on a day like that, so we bought an ice cream and sat in the sun, then went home again. I went for a long walk in the late evening sunshine, and then came....

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

DENMARK WON

YAY

And oh my lord Romania what were you thinking........

Ok I know they were thinking they wanted to lose because they don't want to host it next year but seriously? I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life.

The Eurovision song contest was started over 50 years ago to help patch things up in Europe after the war, and its still going! It was hosted in Sweden this year, in Malmo which is only 30-40 minutes away from here. I didn't go, by the way, I just watched it on TV. Next year, it will be hosted in Denmark! It sucks I wont be here for it, but I can be a part of it from the other side of the world anyway.

This week, I am going to the ballet! The tickets were from my host grandmother (Farmor), so on Tuesday, Caroline and I are off to the Royal Theatre with her. I am SO excited!! Asides from that, it is the last week of school before my three month summer holiday... I am also ff to France to visit my lovely sister because she is turning twenty the week after next!!! So exciting!!

It feels so good to have caught up. Wow.

Next up, the rest of that weekend was spent with more friends and family. It was a super long weekend, we had the Thursday Friday Saturdy AND Sunday off school, hurrah! So Friday night I took a massive bag of leftovers to a friends place, and four or five of us from school all ate dinner together. Afterwards, I headed off to another friends place to work on an English assignment to hand in the next day (got top marks, hollah!). We were up until 12 writing it, and then decided it would be a super good idea to watch a film called The Changeling. Such a good film.

If you get a chance, watch it. Due to our late night, we slept until midday, got up, made pancakes...

I know they look disgusting, but they tasted good, and were healthy believe it or not!

 ...and went to the fitness centre together. It was the first time I had done any exercise since my ankle, and it was good to get moving again. My ankle is much better, I can walk on it easily now but no running for the moment. It's still quite swollen too which is funny because it doesn't hurt so much. I really hope it goes away soon, injuries are so annoying!

My friends grandfather has Alzheimers' and decided to run away from her grandmother at the supermarket  He was missing for several hours, but luckily was found just when I got home! Phew. She lives with her grandparents, who don't speak any English. They were really impressed with my Danish! Woo!

On Sunday, it was Farmor's 60th birthday brunch. We went into a restaurant in the national museum of Copehagen. There were about 60 people there I think! She is a loyal member of a super good choir so there was much singing, and the normal speeches and toasts etc. These people love to celebrate!

On Monday, it was her actual birthday, and we had a birthday dinner at the golf club she is also loyal to. Caroline and I found a room downstairs with hair dryers and curling irons and Marilyn Monroe type movie star mirrors. Anemona, my 5 year old host cousin, came down and we decided to have some fun and do her hair. She is also going through a one direction obsession and taught us a dance she made up to 'What Makes you Beautiful'. So cute!

So that was the long weekend!

This morning I have been to the gym with my host mum and sister, and am now sitting in front of my computer at my desk having eaten a big breakfast and cleaned my sweaty self in the shower. FINALLY. It is time to catch up. I am going to do this in a few separate posts just to block it out a bit. So, to begin with, Caroline's confirmation! 

Add caption

Haha great photo. But seriously we had just woken up, give us a break. 

Helping the lady of the hour apply her false eyelashes. This is now my speciality! I helped Stine put some on a few weeks ago for a cocktail party too. Maybe I should be a make up artist... Not. 

Next on the agenda, the oh so crucial hair. Luckily, Morfar is a hairdresser so that came free of charge, and Caroline got exactly the style she wanted!

Next up, a photographer came and took photos of Caroline and her best friend Frida outside by this beautiful tree. There is a huge block of open land out the back of our house which is now (I must add) TOTALLY GREEN. Spring is really and truly here! 

And into the church we go. She felt a little bit faint walking in, the pressure was on as she and her friend Laura were front of the line... They were the leaders... Dundundun! But no worries, they were exemplary leaders, and the prettiest girls in the room :)

The actual confirmation was all done in a matter of seconds....It was all the singing and sermons in between that made the service an hour and a half long....

And outside again for more photos. Check out the priests outfit. Hahahaha I had to restrain myself from laughing the whole service. He looked like a wannabe Queen Elizabeth 1.

Mormor and Morfar's have a friend with a Rolls Royce. So, of course, Caroline and Frida were driven away from the service in this beauty of a vehicle. What a treat!

Now for the important part, the reception!

We had been there for several hours the day before setting all the tables and decorations up. We held the reception in the staff room of my school. I must say it was a little weird to have a party in the STAFF ROOM, it's another step up from the school parties...

There was so much food. I cannot even begin to describe how much food. 

There were many speeches, songs and toasts! ....

Generally a great feeling of family, celebration and happiness.....

And of course a ridiculous amount of gifts. And money. In short, Caroline was given the same amount I have left for this entire year.... WOW! 

Many photos were taken. With Caroline's BRAND NEW FANCY CAMERA!

We were there until the early hours of the morning, and were all thoroughly exhausted. Simon was probably the most tired, judging by these photos.

And of course, the next morning we were back again to clean up. School on Monday! Afterwards, I think we all had that feeling after something really big happens. that sort of "it's over" feeling. A bit like the feeling after closing night of a musical, where you wish it could keep going but you  know it had to end. Sigh. What a great day, and a new cultural experience! 

Tilykke Caroline, den sødeste lille soster i verden :) 

I am so sorry

I am really bad at keeping up with this blog. Really, really bad. But I will post on Saturday, that is a promise!

I AM SO SORRY